Description

This is one of the most classic 5.7 routes that I have ever done. Hike to the field north of Outer Outlet. The route is actually hard to pick out because it blends into the wall. Look for a crack system that diagonals up the north face. This is the route.

Start by climbing up through face holds to get into the crack. Climb this for one long pitch until a horizontal crack traverse is seen. Set a belay. Then traverse 60 feet or so to the right on juggy holds. This is very airy, and the face drops below you. Finally for pitch 3, pick a variety of ways to the top. A large roof hangs above. There is a chimney on either side of the roof, the left being easier. Grunt through one of these. Otherwise, a beautiful "lightning bolt" crack heads to the right of the right chimney. This is supposed to be a 5.8 finger crack.

This route was first done in 1953 without climbing shoes, a short rope, and both upclimbing and downclimbing it. Very impressive if you ask me.

If you want to make the traversing 2nd pitch a little more exciting do the overhang. That is after you pass the kidney stone on the traverse go up from there through the small overhang. Then after the overhang just go over to the lightning hand crack to finish. This goes about 10a. The route as a whole without a doubt is one of the best routes that the Conns did, along with their route on East Gruesome.

Rob and I did this route last Wednesday. Awesome exposure at the first belay station. We made our second belay right after the blocky traverse. We made a variation for the summit by climbing towards the gully, then traversing right along a handcrack to gain a shoulder (around 5.8 moves), gaining a shoulder which leads to runout 5.4ish climbing to the summit (occasional pro by dipping into the gully and long-slinging). My question is: has anybody done this variation before?

This is the first multi pitch route I did. It was about the coolest thing I had ever done up to that point in my life. I did it with Tori Stempf on a 3 week climbing course he lead called Project Soar. That was in 1976. That was 30 years ago and I am still climbing in Tucson Arizona on Mt. Lemmon and other areas in the SW. I later returned and put up a route that leaves the Conn Diagonal half way through the 2nd pitch. It is called Long Way To Heaven 5.11-.

This is one of those routes that took me a few years to get around to doing--partly due to the intimidation factor and partly due to it's usually crowded nature. Fortunately this labor day weekend, my wife and I found the route empty and had no other good excuse not to give it a try. What a fabulous route!! Enough good things cannot be said about this one. Each pitch contains fun, thought-provoking, exposed, and varied climbing. Definitely not a one move or one pitch wonder like so many climbs are! I brought a set of standard nuts, peanuts, and cams from small aliens to #4 camalot and about a dozen runners of varying lengths. I found this to be just about the right selection of gear for the climb.

A absolute classic adventure climb that is not easy on the heart. (this is not your mother's 5.7 sport climb). If you do this route, you will most likely remember it for a long time.

For what it is worth, and perhaps a bit of clarity, here is how we did it.

Follow the faint trail east under the huge face quite a ways til you come to an abvious staging area at the base of a very long system of cracks and flakes that will diagonal west up the face. Make a few face climbing moves to get into the crack flake system and climb away. At the 170 ft point you will come to two old pitons. It is tempting to belay there (as we mistakenly did). Instead make one more very exposed step across move and voila, a very nice newer two bolt anchor and much more comfortable belay stance. Pitch one, 180 ft. Pitch two is not for the faint of heart. Continue right about 15 ft and then head up the face passing an old piton that looks like it is at least halfway out. When you bump into the roof start the infamous traverse right passing the kidney stone on some incredibly exposed moves. The traverse ends at an obvious belay stance where it is easy to build a solid anchor. Pitch two, 100 ft of rope. Look up and see two chimney systems. Pick the one on the left. Gaining the chimney is awkward and then you climb about 40 ft with very little pro. We managed to get in one piece, but the chimney is very secure and probably about 5.5. Pitch 3 90 ft. To get down with one rope (as recommended by a local guide), rappel off the opposite side you just climbed. Walk east and find a good two bolt anchor.(The route you are descending is Jugs.) Rappel 80 ft to a landing area. Do a very exposed 4th class downclimb to the west to another set of anchors which are easy to spot. A belay might not be a bad idea here as a fall would have very dire circumstances. Do another 80 ft rap to the ground and take the 10 minutes hike back around to your packs. It is also apparently possible to rap down the same side you climbed, but this requires two double ropes raps. Have fun.

Take the alternate 3rd pitch if you want to stay out of the grunt chimney. About ten feet before manteling into the chimney look right. There is a nice crack that starts out going right and curves left thinning to fingers near the top. Placement can be a little tricky in the bottom. After climbing past the crack there is a run-out ramp with easy climbing.

Just did this route a week ago. One of the best in the area. So classic. Remember to pass the pitons and go to the two nice solid bolts for the end of the first pitch, and its a comfy place to sit and watch the leader climb the second pitch. For the third pitch I would highly recommend the 5.8 hand crack. You start going towards the right chimney and then youll see it on your right. So fun and classic.

Great route! You might want to bring an extra rope though, we couldn't find anchors for the second rappel off the backside. We found a flake to sling to rap to the ground. The party after us did one two rope rappel to reach the ground.

Super awesome route! The new Conn's guidebook really keeps the adventure alive on this one. I had no idea where to start and no idea where the heck the anchors were. If you're reading this then you probably already know where the first belay station is. I didn't, so I very unwisely focused on only the route, and not on the rope. By the time I was getting to the belay station I felt like I was pulling a truck! Watch the rope drag. It's not because I didn't sling it long enough or placed too much gear (I placed maybe 8 pieces in 150 feet), but because I let the rope get behind the flake. I think if you can run the rope on the outside of the flake it'll really help. Enjoy!

I saw a chinchilla on this route!!! He did the traverse, then saw me and got scared and ran back in the horizontal crack, then eventually got the courage up to run past me and up the cracks leading to the chimney. Super cute!

I only had time to do one route in the area and I'm so glad we chose this one. Best 5.7 I've ever done. I did the right variation ( looking up into the chimney made be doubt my 6'4" 220 body could squeeze into it), pulled through the 5.8 crack onto the face, almost got blown off by the wind. I continued to the horizontal crack (bomb .75), from that point I moved back into the chimney (now much wider) and finished. Rope drag was pretty awful, but endurable.

Fantastic route with an adventure feel to it. Would be a tough lead for a new 5.7 leader! There's no reason to bring two ropes - the single rope rappel off the back is very straightforward. Just finish the P3 chimney on the right side and use the anchor on the back of the formation. You need a 60m to reach blocks below. Then scramble up and over the blocks behind you (easy and not exposed) and find another set of rap anchors that take you to the ground. 5 min hike around the corner (easily done in climbing shoes or sandals) and you're back at the base.

This is one of the greatest climbs I have ever been on. Absolutely amazing!! Great exposure and a real sense of adventure can be had! Highly recommend. For an extra rush do it in the original style. lol

Super fun route, although everything gets a bit more interesting when wet. We had a great time on the first two pitches and then did the 5.8 hand crack variation (highly recommended) to the easy runout ridge finish.

Important to note: If you're doing this variation you should bring two ropes to rap because the anchors on that side of the formation (W) don't reach the ledge that contains the other set of anchors to get you to the ground. We only brought one so we had to down climb the chimney and stem across to the other part of the summit to get down using the rusty anchors above Jugs.

All in all, a great route (especially liked P2) and would do it again in a heartbeat.

^^^^^^^^ If one does the 5.8 "lightning" crack/variation finish and then up the easy, yet runout ridge, there is a set of anchors once you top out, continue on flat territory for another 10ft and there they are. Then rap off these too. Only 1 rope is needed. scramble up and over and there is another 1 rope rap. however this will put you on the opposite side of the conn diagonal, so a little bit of walking is needed to get back to the start of the route...

Too much hype, its good but the only thing that makes it good is the hand crack on the third pitch which is awesome, but super short. Do the lightning bolt! Otherwise its alright with good exposure. Otherwise the parks climbs are pretty spot on, not sandbagged one bit. The park as a whole seemed pretty spot on to me. Most of the classics, if they were in Yosemite, would be downgraded, imo.

Two ropes were found on the summit of Conn Diagonal. For others new to the area, the two bolt hangers that you see after the finger crack that i believe is 5.8 are not rappel anchors. There are nice rap anchors after doing a little step across on the summit. I would not recommend putting ropes through the hangers!!! If these are your ropes please contact me at 6059399698 by text to identify them.

Most of the classics, if they were in Yosemite, would be downgraded, imo.

I've done lots of the classic Needles climbs and quite a bit in Yosemite and Tuolumne and would say that when the styles are comparable (which they often are not), the Needles grades are either equivalent or more severe. Most of the original classic grades were supplied by Yosemite climbers who were pretty well-known for sandbagging their gradings. It is true that some of those original grades have been raised, sometimes by as much as two entire grades (eg Conn route on the South Tower of Spire 4 going from 5.7 to 5.9), so perhaps the purported "downgrading" would amount to returning some of the routes to their correct original grade.

As for the Conn Diagonal route, I think it is a lovely outing that certainly looks intimidating from the ground but doesn't turn out to be particularly demanding for a 5.7, at least partially because it has been upgraded from a more apt 5.6.

In my opinion, now that mountainproject has started using consensus rating for the main rating used in searches and stuff, that all these routes should have their original rating reassigned to them for historical purposes. R gold you mention south tower, a perfect example. It was 5.7 and the original rating should still be listed as 5.7. If enough people give it 5.9 as a modern rating, then it will have 5.9 attached for searches and as the main rating.

A few things about the third pitch and the descent: I climbed the lightning crack variation then snuck left to the right chimney so I wouldn't have to do the runout at the top. Just use extended slings to cut down on rope drag. Once at the top, I did like others have said by skipping the first set of anchors and continuing on to the anchors on the back side. We were not able to see the ends of our rope when rappelling off these anchors. I had a 70 meter rope and it barely got me to the landing zone. When I was rappelling off the side I was able to see the ends after going down about 20 feet. The ends were hanging in the air next to a ledge. I don't know if a 60-meter rope reaches anything down there.

We rappelled off the anchors marked in green

If you climb the right chimney or crack variation, use the rappel anchors marked in green. If you climb the left chimney, use the rappel anchors marked in red.

After the first rappel, instead of doing the 4th class climb over to the next rappel station, we did a simul-rappel off the large formation which separates two chimney systems. This brought us to the ground near the start of Iron Lingerie.